Early Larkin

Beginning with Philip Larkin's earliest literary efforts and his remarkable correspondence with Jim Sutton this book traces the writer's development from the 1930s through to <i>The Less Deceived</i> <i></i>his first poetic masterpiece. <br/>Drawing on the poetry novels short fictions essays and letters Underwood presents a new and surprising narrative of Larkin's literary development. Whilst many critics have described Larkin's early career as a false start overcome by swapping Yeats's example for Hardy's Underwood emphasises the influence of Brunette Coleman the female heteronym Larkin invented in 1943. <br/>Based on extensive archival research and covering the full range of Larkin's published and unpublished early writings this book radically re-thinks Larkin's literary breakthrough. It shows it to be the result of Larkin's burgeoning interest in everything outside himself - itself the consequence of his curious Brunette Coleman experiment.